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I’m hard at work making a cloak*, so please enjoy a scene from Bedknobs and Broomsticks in which a witch makes historical clothing and armor come to life to fight a Nazi mini-invasion of rural England.

I hope you’re having a wild and wacky holiday. In about an hour I’ll get into costume (the One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater, last seen at Dragon*Con), start the tacos, and begin drinking. Hopefully the trick-0r-treaters will show up shortly thereafter. Happy Halloween!

Like this:

However you’re dressed, however you’re celebrating (or recovering from weekend celebrations), The Legolas of the Opera and I hope you have a fanfuckingtastic time. If you get any costume pictures, send them our way!

Like this:

Take Back Halloween! – in their own words, this is “A costume guide for women with imagination.” It’s a great jumping off point if you’re looking for something a little more interesting/less ridiculous than Sexy Big Bird or Sexy Firefighter.

Like this:

I want to draw attention to an internet campaign I ran into somewhere on Tumblr. As best I can figure, it originated here, but Tumblr is a strange and vast place and I can’t guarantee that’s true.

There is more about this topic at Native Appropriations. Before anyone tries to tell me that “this sort of thing is all in good fun and isn’t as important as XYZ issue,” stop and think for a minute. Racism, like classism, sexism, ableism, ageism, heterenormativity, and other assorted bigotries has everything to do with seemingly innocuous things like stupid costumes and ethnic jokes, because innocuous things normalize those bigotries.

Think before you put on a racist costume like this. Even if you’re 100% pro-racism, do you really want to look like a moron? Because you will.

Like this:

Oh look, a blog! I wonder whose it is? Oh, it’s mine? Oh wow. I wonder why I haven’t updated it in so long? Can I plead a broken finger? I didn’t actually break anything, but I could pretend.

Anyway, I’m in an out-of-town wedding this weekend (not mine; that was several years ago), and I am currently running around like a freshly decapitated chicken as I try to get ready to go on this trip. I mean, not CURRENTLY currently, as currently I am writing a blog post, but you get the point. Stop being so pedantic.

Let’s talk about Halloween costumes. What are you going to be this year? What are your favorite costumes from past years?

I trick-or-treated all the way up until I graduated high school, with a group of friends. No one ever seemed to mind, though, because we were always polite, and always–ALWAYS–costumed. I don’t mind older kids trick-or-treating, so long as there are costumes involved.

My Halloween costumes over the years have been varied, strange, and often quite repetitive. For instance, I was She-Rah two or three years in a row (this was back when I was a kid and didn’t have my rules about hair color), and Winnifred Sanderson (Bette Middler’s character) from Hocus Pocusat least twice, back when my sister and I could still quote most of that movie. There was also a Catwoman stint, inspired by Michelle Pfieffer’s brillian turn in Batman Returns. I had little mouse ears we shaped to be more pointy. My mom even drew stitch marks on my leotard with chalk. Unfortunately, I wore purple underwear under said leotard, so the kids at school called me “Purple Underwear Girl” all day. I was not super pleased.

In 6th grade, before I grew to be half a foot taller than her, I wore some of my mom’s clothes from high school and was a “hippie” (I use scare quotes because my mom went to high school in the mid-1970s and was not, in fact, a hippie). In 8th grade, myself, my best friend at the time, and my sister dressed up as Hanson. I had to be Isaac. I was not super pleased with that either, and neither did I really look like him, but my sister was a dead ringer for Zac circa 1998, so it worked well enough.

When I was a tiny tot, and we still lived in Cleveland, OH, I was a fairy princess one year. This didn’t work out very well, because it was freezing, and I had to wear my winter coat over my fairy princess costume and we trick-or-treated by car. The next year I was Beetlejuice, which was awesome; my mom and I (mostly my mom) stitched white stripes onto a pair of legging, and then she painted a black jacket with white stripes and added a snake at the collar. I like to believe I was the hit of the Brownie Girl Scout party.

In college and beyond, I went a little more obscure. I’ve been Crowley from Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett (a friend was Aziraphale, and we walked around being other peoples’ shoulder angel/devil); Pride (part of a Seven Deadly Sins set; I got dressed to the nines and covered myself in congratulatory ribbons: “#1”, “Winner”, “The Best”, etc); Rocky Balboa (an inside joke that should have won me the work costume contest but didn’t) complete with black eye; Hera, the Greek goddess (which gave me the excuse to wear a metric ton of glitter and carry peacock feathers; I was beaten at the work costume contest by a dead-on Frida Kahlo); and Carmen Sandiego, which is to date the easiest, most comfortable costume I have ever worn.

Some day I would like to use an idea I stole from a friend’s little sister and be the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune (carry a slingshot, wear one of those arrow-through-the-head headbands, and cover myself in Monopoly money). This year, however, I’ll be doing as a lady who lives too far in the boonies to go to any parties or get trick-or-treaters.

Like this:

Or, How Not To Be A Pain In The Ass While Shopping For A Halloween Costume

Ah, Halloween; that magical night of the year when children are allowed–nay, encouraged to beg for handouts, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is socially acceptable for mainstream viewing, and I never have anything to wear because I’m exhausted from all the costuming I do the rest of the year. Is that irony? I can never remember.

One of the many bizarre jobs I’ve had in my thus-far-brief life was a stint at a costume store. Not one of those soulless “Halloween stores” that spring up in September and are gone by November 2nd, mind; this is a real, honest-to-Nye costume store that was open year-round and does business in quality retail and rental costumes as well as makeup, wigs, accessories, and whatever bizarre shit Jimmy, the manager, decided he wanted to sell. Most of the extensive assortment of rental costumes are made in-house, and the staff (there were about eight people in permanent positions) were enormously weird people who could costume just about anyone or anything.

It was hilarious and bizarre and laid the foundations for a love of costuming, and I loved it. There was one time of year, however, that I did not love. Can you guess what that was, based perhaps on the title of this entry?

RESCU
A non-profit organization established to promote and maintain the health and medical well-being of the participants of Renaissance Faires, historical performances and other artistic events through financial assistance, advocacy, education and preventative